Angels

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Sun May 02, 2010 5:54 pm

Dave's trading has been pretty brutal since the minidraft and a lot of GM's are fed up with it, since he's getting bent over time and time and time again and just turning around and selling players for 30 cents on the dollar after paying 2x the value of a player to begin with. (See: Chipper Jones.)

We all like Dave (ok, maybe not all) but he's a pretty good guy. He's just not making smart trades and is reverting to his old form from when we've booted him before back in 2003. I went ahead and warned him that he needs to start making better trades or waiting for better value because there's a bunch of GM's that kind of want him booted.

Hopefully, he listens and starts taking better deals, or better yet, just not making bad deals. I figured I'd post this just so we can start a dialogue and have some sort of record that he's been warned about making bad deals. We boot people for inactivity and how it adds nothing to the league, but having somebody make terrible trade after terrible trade is even worse for the league and that's a tough argument for me to shoot down. Lets just hope that he wises up.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Mon May 10, 2010 6:46 pm

I know there's a growing push to boot Dave, and I've always said I'd have his back and fillibuster and do whatever to stop it, but if you guys want him gone I won't stand in the way. I hate to see him go because I really like Dave, but he is the weakest member of the league easily

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Tue May 11, 2010 2:46 pm

I've had another handful of people grumble to me about his latest trade (Konerko/Lewis for Jackson/Masterson/Wheeler) What are some of your guys thoughts? Do any of you think we should look at this more closely and seriously consider removing him? He is a good guy, which makes it kind of difficult. It'd be a lot easier if he was a prick. But at what point is he messing the league up for everybody else? Looking at his trades since the minidraft, it's tough to say he actually knows what he is doing, and then we always seem to see him move his first round draft pick.

Maybe there are alternate solutions to booting him as well, such as looking at his trades with a much tougher eye, or even placing trade sanctions on him. Didn't they do that in the NBA? Prevent you from dealing your #1 pick in back to back years to prevent a team from killing itself? I could be making that up. But either way, he is doing a pretty big disservice right now to everybody else and many different people have been complaining to me about it and want him gone.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Tue May 11, 2010 3:03 pm

I think that everyone in the league likes Dave, and because of that it's hard to talk openly about booting him. But if we were to take the person out of it and review the GM, I think that he would have been gone a long time ago. He has been by far the worst GM in the league since I've been around (though Kelly might give him a bit of a run for his money), which is five years, and most importantly, he is by far the greatest threat to the league in terms of throwing off fair and competitive balance.

I have vetoed a lot of his deals that have passed, and even some of the ones I have approved were just awful judgment. And that is a pattern of his, to make a deal that is approvable, but is bad for the league and horrible for his team. That pattern clearly is not going to change, as he has been in the league for a long, long time and has made some of his worst deals in the past six months.

We have had discussions before about what makes a good or bad GM, and while activity is key, I have repeatedly held that the very worst thing that a GM can do to a league is make trades that hand elite players to other teams for relatively nothing, and Dave makes that decision every single time he runs into a top player. We (I suppose unwisely) gave him the rope to hang himself again by letting him in the minidraft and giving him access to a Halladay, etc.

The two best things about the IBC are what Shawn has done with the website and the overall quality of our GMs. And Dave is a major exception to that second quality. I'm with JP that if there is anything that we could do to keep him around while taking the bullets out of his loaded gun, I'm open to it. But I have said privately that he should go otherwise, and as much as I don't like the idea of telling him he's out, it would be the right thing to do.

As far as those alternatives, I don't have any suggestions off hand. We all know that if he has one of the top couple of picks, he'll try to trade it like he did his Wieters and Posey picks, and probably for about what he received for them. And he is in the middle of looking to deal Weaver, why I have no idea, and the pressure will soon be on the TRC, because he may do a deal that it finds passable, but I can say from my discussions with him that he is primed to make another huge mistake there. For instance, he's interested in some of my (nice but not super elite) prospects, but has no use for Dallas Braden or Michael Bourn.

He's not going to learn, so whatever we might do to keep him around basically has to involve taking away his authority to do trades.

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Tue May 11, 2010 4:16 pm

Following Brett's post...if we allow him to stay, with the restraints of basically being not allowed to touch the roster (which is, frankly, what it will probably take to keep him from doing something ridiculously awful), that's essentially the same as removing him from the league.

He's a nice enough fellow and he tries hard, but he's pretty much run out of chances to try to become a competent GM.

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Tue May 11, 2010 8:50 pm

I'm not necessarily opposed to dumping Dave.

My antagonistic statements on the boards towards him are more frustration than any real resentment, but he clearly doesn't know how to value players. This is at least the 3rd or 4th time he's had a decent team and run it straight into the ground. Especially in a division with only 4 teams, his mistakes are magnified for his opponents to take advantage of.

I think it's pretty clear that on a skills level we can rationalize our decision. Nice guy or not, he's hurting 29 (well 28) others with his moves. I'm sure we'll hear some push back from some of the guys in the league, but I think the most critical part of this decision is making sure we bring in someone strong to replace Dave. Dumping Dave for Dave Lite would obviously be a waste.

Any sentiments towards a minidraft with Dave and Seth's teams? I think we could do it midseason since both teams are in the same division so it's not like we're really stirring the pot (which is why we held off on in-season minidrafts previously)

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Tue May 11, 2010 9:27 pm

Depends on how quick the process is. If we can get a GM that (seems to be/is) solid, yes, a midseason mindraft would work. But if we can't find one, I suppose that Ropers and Jake will have a pretty wide open slot for a first round sweep.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Tue May 11, 2010 9:33 pm

I'm fine with an ASB minidraft. We do need to get the ball rolling on replacements though

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Wed May 12, 2010 2:54 pm

It is time for Dave to leave the IBC -- and I will likely veto any trade he is involved until he does leave.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Wed May 12, 2010 10:06 pm

I will take over caretaking for one of the vacant AL West teams so there's not such a load on JP, but I'm not the one telling Dave he's gone, he's too good of a friend.

I think we need to stress it wasn't strictly an EXCO decision, that a number of members have came to us complaining

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Wed May 12, 2010 11:41 pm

Dodgers wrote:I'm not necessarily opposed to dumping Dave.

My antagonistic statements on the boards towards him are more frustration than any real resentment, but he clearly doesn't know how to value players. This is at least the 3rd or 4th time he's had a decent team and run it straight into the ground. Especially in a division with only 4 teams, his mistakes are magnified for his opponents to take advantage of.

I think it's pretty clear that on a skills level we can rationalize our decision. Nice guy or not, he's hurting 29 (well 28) others with his moves. I'm sure we'll hear some push back from some of the guys in the league, but I think the most critical part of this decision is making sure we bring in someone strong to replace Dave. Dumping Dave for Dave Lite would obviously be a waste.

Any sentiments towards a minidraft with Dave and Seth's teams? I think we could do it midseason since both teams are in the same division so it's not like we're really stirring the pot (which is why we held off on in-season minidrafts previously)

I actually asked one of the members of my fantasy league that I'm in, which has money on the line in it. I asked if he were interested because he has done a rebuilding effort, since it's a dynasty league and we keep the same rosters every year. He's overloaded on prospects there and seems to have a pretty firm handle that youth and prospects are the key to rebuilding so he'd be a good candidate for either opening since it looks like Dave is history.

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Thu May 13, 2010 5:30 pm

Personal preference obviously if they're going into a minidraft...if we're going to minidraft obviously we should shoot for bringing in two guys at the same time instead of having one sit on a roster they can't do anything with. Are we specifying they must minidraft regardless of their preference?

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Thu May 13, 2010 7:47 pm

My prefernce would be a minidraft at end of season ... could include others ... let the new guys learn the league a tad.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Thu May 13, 2010 7:56 pm

I say let them do what they want with their teams, if, at the end of the year they both want to minidraft, fine. If one of them wants to keep their team the way it is and nobody else wants to minidraft, then the other guy is stuck. No need in minidrafting at the ASB, that'll just add headaches and more work. Plus I'm pretty sure there's a rule against in season minidrafting

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Thu May 13, 2010 9:54 pm

I'm against any type of minidraft. Neither roster is extraordinarily talented, and neither is really much better than the other. Having a minidraft in the middle of the year is something that we've frowned upon in the past and I believe something we said we'd never do again. I believe the last time that was attempted was when Josh left in 2005. As for waiting the remainder of the year, it's pretty unnecessary and gives snake GM's a chance to say "Well, if this prospect or two doesn't work out for Ramirez, then you can always just minidraft at the end of the year." And what would be the point in making any trades or free agent signings if they were just going to potentially lose their players?

There's also absolutely no reason to include others into another minidraft ever again. Period end of story. There was opportunity for anybody in the league last year to minidraft with Nate's roster in the fold and only Dave, John and Brandon volunteered to take part. It's not as if either Seth or Dave's roster has anywhere near the talent Dave's had and there's no reason to allow a bad GM to bail themselves out again. The teams that minidraft are 99% of the time shitty and looking to get better, and that's the result of the GM's doing. We let a bad GM minidraft into a great pool and the result is his forceful exit from the league. If you suck, then you deal with it.

I'd rather give the rosters as is to new GMs.

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Fri May 14, 2010 5:13 pm

I am fine with no minidraft -- I just don't want one in the middle of the season.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Fri May 14, 2010 5:49 pm

I tend to agree that no minidraft is the way to go for this situation, particularly if a) the two guys aren't brought in at the same time, or b) they are brought in during the season. The whole minidraft thing is our tradition, but some of us didn't participate in one. I didn't, for example. I joined in March and had made several moves by the time one was held, so I just kept what I had.

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Mon May 17, 2010 1:53 pm

I informed Dave last night that we decided to remove him. He wasn't at his computer, though. He had an away message up on AIM. I'm sure he read it. I changed his passwords as well. I feel like I just shot Lenny. Here's some rabbits...pow.